Socialist Appeal

NEW FROM WELLRED

THE CLASSICS OF MARXISM

Four great works in one book

Theory

The Crisis of Capitalism and the tasks of the Marxists – Part One

By Alan Woods (www.marxist.com)
Thursday, 17 September 2009
This summer, Alan Woods delivered a speech on the nature of the present crisis of capitalism, in which he deals with the relationship between the economic cycle and the class struggle, and also looks into what kind of recovery we can expect, considering the enormous contradictions that have accumulated within the system.

Leon Trotsky:1879-1940

By Estevan Volkov
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Today marks the 69th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky. Murdered by the cowardly hands of Stalin's henchman, Trotsky's ideas remain as relevant today as ever. We mark this anniversary by reproducing a statement issued by Estevan Volkov, Trotsky's grandson, ten years ago. In doing so we remember the final words from Trotsky's testament: "Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence and enjoy it to the full."

The Living Thoughts of Karl Marx – a Nigerian point of view

By Didi Cheeka in Lagos
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Marx has been declared dead so many times, and yet he keeps coming back again and again, the reason being that his ideas, his theories, are the only ones that can explain the present crisis of capitalism. Here a Nigerian Marxist gives his views on the relevance of Marx’s ideas today.

Ted Grant (1913 - 2006)

By Steve Jones
Monday, 20 July 2009
Today is the third anniversary of the death of Ted Grant who died on July 20th 2006 aged 93. To mark this we are making available an article on Marxism from 1994.In September Wellred will be publishing the first volume of Ted Grant's writings.

A Coup in Britain?

By Ted Grant in 1981
Friday, 24 April 2009
Ted Grant seizes on evidence of a plot against the right wing Labour Prime minister Harold Wilson to show the real nature of the capitalist state. Behind the democratic façade the state is an organ of capitalist class rule. The establishment will strive might and main to preserve their privileges and will resort to whatever undemocratic measures are necessary to preserve the capitalist system.

From Bolshevism to Bush – exploring the political trajectory of the Jewish people

Monday, 20 April 2009

Leon Trotsky, prominent Jewish revolutionary

Jews throughout the 20th century were attacked as either Communists or rich capitalists. According to this view there was some kind of conspiracy here to overthrow society as we know it. This is pure racist anti-Semitism, which Marxists utterly reject. Jews around the world, and in Israel, belong to different classes and thus have different interests. How does this affect their thinking? Walter Leon looks into the question and connects it to the ups and downs of the class struggle.

Marxism Versus New Fabianism - Part Two

By Socialist Appeal
Tuesday, 07 April 2009
The second main thread in all the New Fabian Essays is a criticism of the totalitarian regimes in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, and the identification of Marxism with Stalinism. Here it is necessary to steer between two fatal mistakes. The one typified by the mixed group who maintained long and discreet silences about the crimes of Stalinism, with only the faintest trace of 'criticism'; and those who fail to make a distinction between the political regimes of Stalinism and the basic economic revolution on which the Stalinist bureaucracy and its satellites base themselves. Either mistake can be fatal for the developing left wing in the Labour Party.

Marxism Versus New Fabianism - Part One

By Ted Grant in 1952
Monday, 06 April 2009
After the reforms of the 1945-51 Labour government, Ted Grant considers the question as to whether capitalism had changed fundamentally. The publication of the New Fabian Essays in 1952 gave him the opportunity to take up the thinking of the Labour leadership.

Engels and Human Development

By John Pickard in 1984
Friday, 27 February 2009
Engels' pamphlet, The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, written in 1876, but not published until 20 years later, contained many brilliant insights into the theory of human development. Against a background of very scarce fossil or other evidence, his application of the method of dialectical materialism to the problem allowed him to provide a consistent and coherent explanation of human development well in advance of the majority of his scientific contemporaries; an explanation that remains to this day the main pivot of any Marxist view of human development.